August 28, 2004

Points of Amusement 1



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Just as it is in Japan, in China there are occasional misuses of English. Here are a few I've noted in the past week:


This sign becomes more clear when one notes that the sign below it reads "Fire Hyd Rant."


A similar sign--they just don't know how to refer to a fire hose correctly.

The following are not exactly language errors, but do seem a bit useless:

After all, if a person is going to throw themselves in front of a moving train, forbidding it is not exactly going to do much good. As if someone would plan to jump, see the sign, and then decide that they did not want to risk breaking the rules.

Here's what was seen on a package of potato chips:

There are also things not linguistic in nature, but still rather amusing. For example, how Chinese males cool off in the hot and humid weather. In Japan, you rarely see a shirtless man, but here in China, they are fairly common, which makes sense; I don't see how Japanese salarymen survive humid weather in the 90's in full business suits.

Anyway, in China, some men will take off their shirts, but others will do something that can have a comical effect:

And that's not just a special case you see here. That's what I've seen dozens upon dozens of males in China, child and adult, do to cool down. Always the same, too--shirt rolled up to the chest, bellies exposed--just like pictured above.

The big, protruding stomachs really make the difference.

Posted by Luis at August 28, 2004 02:00 PM
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